Rounding out the cast will be Donald Sutherland, as a retired member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police whose border-side empire of duty-free shops becomes an underground railroad for draft-dodging Americans; Celine Dion, as a militant Québécois separatist who cuts ties with Morissette after she takes up with Aykroyd’s Ottawan bureaucrat; and Mike Myers, in full Dr. Evil mode, as a poutine-munching French-Canadian terror-cell leader plotting to kill the Queen of England during a royal visit to the Chateau Frontenac.

I suppose it has some appeal beyond its criticisms of post-9/11 USA and post-7/7 UK, in the same way that 1984 isn’t just about the totalitarian threat in the forties. But it’s a whole lot easier to take the movie lightly now that the American election is over and terrorism as a priority has receded in the face of good old fashioned economic crisis.

Still, it gave me chills when Portman said, at the end of the movie, “That the world needs more than just a building right now. It needs hope.” That was creepily prescient.

I’ve never been to Montreal. As a young, pretty much unilingual (merci, public schools) Ontarian, Montreal has always felt like a gray anaemic has-been somewhere out past Kingston. I know that’s not a fair assessment and I’d like to see the city today… almost as much as I would like to see it in its prime!

The Montreal of this film is far more interesting than history lessons (those damn schools again) or Canadian popular culture (such that it is) have led me to believe.

On the whole, it was an enjoyable way to spend 113 minutes. There were some moments were the characters seemed less like soldiers and more like feuding teen-aged girls, but besides this it was less like usual MTV fare than I had feared.

The movie’s politics are pretty safe, given President Bush’s low approval rating, but are hardly radical. I don’t consider myself radical either, yet I found the ending unsatisfactory. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you.

The selection of movies in theatres right now is pretty weak, so if you’re looking for something that isn’t outright terrible, Stop-Loss is a safe bet.